Why some women can’t reach orgasm during sex

The new study has tackled the myth that some women cannot achieve orgasms because of their attitude towards sex, by highlighting that anatomy plays and important role.

The ability of a man to experience an orgasm comes down to a balancing act between the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls the body when it is resting, and the sympathetic nervous system, which triggers the “fight or flight” mechanism, according to researchers.

But for females, the composition of her body and how the penis, or other stimulant, enters the body is more important, explains Dr Elizabeth Emhardt, based at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and lead author of the study published in the journal ‘Clinical Anatomy’.

“Sexual experiences are assumed to be in your control based on your attitude: your confidence, your ability to trust, your openness,” she argued.
Instead, the study showed that differences in sexual anatomy are the “foundation for differences in sexual experience.”Dr Emhardt went on to suggest that people may not be “control of our sexual experiences as much as we once thought.”

She concluded: “Orgasms are complex phenomena involving psychological, physiological, and anatomic variation.”Further research is now needed to investigate how such issues can be treated, she added.The team from the Indiana University and the Mayo Clinic made their findings by reviewing existing research on the sexual anatomy. The research follows a recent study which highlighted gender inequality in attitudes towards oral sex. Young women are more likely than men to perform oral sex on their partner even if they don’t want to, according to researchers.

Despite many of the 71 teenagers they interviewed saying that there was equality in giving and receiving oral sex, both groups agreed it was more distasteful and a “bigger deal” for men to perform oral sex than women.